How 'Jobs-to-be-Done' can create more personalised ads post-IDFA

"The perfect advertisement is one in which the reader can say, 'This is for me, and me alone.” - Peter F. Drucker.

Firstly, I think we need to acknowledge that in today's world many consumers won't even 'read' an ad if they haven't first been drawn to an eye-catching creative but the sentiment remains the same. I'd wager that all CMO's would concur that serving a personalised and relevant ad allows for a greater chance of building a lasting and profitable relationship with a consumer.?

?However, since the deprecation of IDFA, marketers are having more and more difficulty creating relevant ads and in many cases, signal loss is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some others challenges advertisers are facing:

• Increased competition?
• Decreased consumer attention spans
• The Pandemic?
• Changing consumer behaviour
• Multiple digital channels to manage
• Shortage of highly skilled Paid Social expertise

?I feel that there is a consensus that creative testing is key to driving performance and becoming more relevant moving forward but is creative testing alone enough to build those personalised ads Drucker refers to?

Here is an opportune time to introduce the ‘Jobs-to-be-Done’ theory. For those that aren’t familiar, ‘Jobs-to-be-Done’ is the notion that each consumer hires a product to do a particular job and that during the decision making process makes a choice to ‘fire’ another product, service or feeling.?We all hire products to fill a void or replace something whether that be tangible or intangible.

?Let’s take this theory and relate it to an advertiser in a highly competitive space at the moment, meal kits. Here are some obvious and not-so obvious considerations that a marketing team needs to take into account when create a ‘personalised’ advertising experience:

?What is the meal kit being hired for:

• Feed the family
• Add variety to weekly cooking
• Convenience
• To eat a healthier diet
• Less food waste?

Of course, there are deeper motivations that lie behind each of the above too. Is the consumer wanting to eat a healthier diet to lose weight or feel more energised? Do they want to cut down on meat consumption but are lacking inspiration for vegetarian dishes? Or do they simply want more flavour without having to overhaul the herb and spice cupboard? This list of motivators could be infinite and we haven’t even thought about what is being fired. Let’s do that:

• Traditional supermarket shopping
• Eating out at restaurants?
• Microwave and ‘stick something in the oven’ meals
• Takeaways
• Cookbooks

The above are basic examples but of course there are more considerations for the consumer. Can I commit to cooking from scratch 3 times per week? Will I get bored of the food choices? Will the ingredients be good quality? Does it provide good value once the trial offer ends? Most of which will need to be answered when nurturing the consumer through the sales funnel to signing up and addressed when producing creative for ads.?

When you multiply all of the factors above and add various funnel steps into the mix you begin to realise that simply launching and testing a couple of creative variations probably won’t be enough for these businesses to deliver on their mission statement and redefine how people shop for food and experience home cooking, let alone hit their ambitions growth goals for years to come.?

This is of course a very specific example but the theory is transferable to any vertical and any business. The historic over reliance on 3rd party data has left many advertisers struggling to launch and run creative to a handful of target personas, let alone hundreds of audiences who may be looking to hire your product or service for varying reasons. Insufficient assets, lengthy approval processes and limited creative resource are some of the main reasons cited for running limited tests and this is where technology and innovation can help.?

Smartly.io's platform is used by many of the most advanced advertisers across many verticals to automate many of the processes involved in creative production, campaign creation and ongoing optimisation. But with social advertising in a state flux we feel it's never been more important to challenge advertiser's old ways of working to ensure they succeed and that each ad they run has the strongest possible chance of making the user feel it’s for them and only them.

There are many untapped opportunities out there that are made far easier with the use of technology and meaningful data but we'll only uncover them through testing and learning.

?We started with a Peter Drucker quote and we’ll end with one too... “Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.” and I'd like to add a little twist on the end… “and when the two work in unison, you’ll see some truly amazing results.”?